As artificial intelligence (AI) begins its proliferation across the tech world, concerns about the technology are also abundant. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai thinks AI’s growth will prompt societal adaptations as it becomes more and more prevalent. But some fear the technology’s most imminent threat is to job security — especially for software engineers. The CEO addressed some of the concerns in a recent interview with The New York Times.
Instead of anticipating doom for engineers, Pichai believes AI tools will simplify, improve, and enhance their programming experience — perhaps, even make coding enjoyable. In the interview, featured in a New York Times podcast, he also emphasized the positive benefits of AI chatbots, including the potential for tools like OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s own AI chatbot, Bard, to make programming more accessible and create new roles.
While ChatGPT has taken the online world by storm, Google’s Bard has lagged, but Pichai is confident about the company’s impending expansion of the platform. He anticipates upgrading Bard to some more capable Pathways Language Model (PaLM) models, which can bring greater possibilities in reasoning, coding, and beyond.
